The conference entitled "Advancing the Study of Stroke in Women" will take place Aug 25-26, 2005 in Durham, NC near Duke University. The purpose of this multidisciplinary conference is to generate new ideas for clinical, experimental, and translational studies that will be designed to improve the understanding of stroke risk and prevention for women. This objective will be addressed by assembling panels of distinguished basic science and clinical researchers who will develop a strategic plan for future research related to stroke in women. The Specific Aims of the conference are: 1) to summarize estrogen's actions at the level of the neurovascular unit, 2) to design studies that will determine how estrogen may increase the risk of stroke from the clinical, preclinical, and translational perspective, 3) to organize multicenter, multidisciplinary collaborations for these new studies, and 4) to foster junior investigators' interest in pursuing research in the field of stroke and women's health. Young investigators with an interest in this field will be encouraged to submit abstracts of ongoing research pertinent to these topics. Every effort will be made to include women, minorities, and those with disabilities. The conference will review estrogen's known actions at the neurovascular unit and with small workshops, experts will discuss the discrepancies among the results of observational and randomized studies, the gaps in knowledge between preclinical and clinical studies of estrogen and stroke, and improved methods of identifying women who are at risk of stroke with short term hormone therapy use for perimenopausal symptoms. The goal for each workgroup will be to summarize the current knowledge of the topic and to propose clinical, experimental, or translational studies that will improve the understanding of estrogen and stroke risk. A poster session for junior and senior investigators with ongoing research will be scheduled. The conference proceedings, including original abstracts, will be published in a neurology journal supplement. This conference is timely based on the results of Women's Health Initiative (WHI) study showing an increased risk of stroke with hormone therapy. By expanding the study of estrogen and stroke, the conference will ultimately lead to improvement of women's health.